Well, this "small fry" Washington Mutual — excuse me, now JPMorgan Chase — customer still has access to his accounts, on line at least, at this hour. Nothing papering over the FDIC's seizure is evident on their Website, with the only P.R. statement being from Monday, the new president of the thrift assuring depositors that everything is just peachy.

What I suspect is, again, the timing. This comes about nine hours after the latest $1-trillion-plus effort at bipartisan swindling, er, bailouts collapsed in acrimony. The third such bit of timing in three weeks? After Fannie-and-Freddie, and Lehman-Merrill-AIG? As Ian Fleming wrote, "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action."

This WaMu failure is altogether too convenient a piece of financial ju-jitsu to have happened to come together on the very night that Congress is muddling through this mess, ready to re-deal tomorrow, desperate to adjourn.

It appears that I can get my cash tomorrow. (Some of it's going elsewhere immediately. Why should I trust Chase?)

Unfortunately, the levers are being pried forward to deprive us all of what's left of our circulating medium in the near future, and any Republican resolve on the Hill will soon fade back into the mists of constitutional memory from whence it came.

Ah well. As I remarked to a libertarian friend tonight, at least "we" are not also doing what the professional Objectivists on both coasts have been recommending — turning Tehran into radioactive glass. "We" are sticking merely with blowing the bejesus out of what little is left of the dollar.

Small favors. For now.

* * *

Link postscript: Here is the "Welcome WaMu" letter from Chase that finally got Web-posted early this morning.

Visual postscript: This image — created by a member of the discussion forum for Karl Denninger's iconoclastic Market Ticker blog — gets to the heart of it. WaMu clearly got its inevitable euthanasia, at this particular precise historical moment, as a means of intimidating Congress.



For once, we see the tools that Bernanke and Paulson are really carrying, though they'll never admit they are. (The victim wears the WaMu logo, in case you don't recognize it.)

Steve,

I fully sympathize. My own account is at WaMu. I will be getting another account at another bank soon.

Probably HSBC, which is one of the world's most stable banks. Incidentally, HSBC stands for Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

How's that for irony?

Michael

I was talking to someone today who lived in California today. I noticed that she had a WaMu checkbook. I asked her if the checks were any good. She then told me that she had a job that had required it.

I've had direct deposit on every job since 1999 or so. Never once did I have a job that required me to use a certain bank. One has to wonder what kind of kickbacks WaMu was giving this company and what other companies WaMu was giving kickbacks to. It certainly makes you wonder about who you are dealing with.

I honestly wonder why anybody ever deals with a big bank. I never have. When I lived in Ohio, my bank had about seven locations or so. Before that, I had dealt with even smaller ones.

Now, for the first time in my life, I have a credit union. I have never been more satisfied with any financial institution in my life.

Chase is a much stronger bank than HSBC, which is laying off 1000-1500 employees. WaMu is on your checks and still on the bank door, but it's Chase right now, not tomorrow, next week or next year. And under FDIC it really doesn't matter anyhow.

--Brant